FINDING HOPE HAIKU IN THE TIME OF COVID

Reading with children Facetime is the next best thing When snuggling is out. Walking with Kathy To be outside where life is So spectacular. People delighted By an unexpected call I happened to make. Call from a cousin Who lives in Ontario Remembering me. Grateful for wellness And grocery delivery A home that I love. Making up stories Wednesdays are the send-out days Getting letters back. Balcony pansies Pandemic insensitive Blooming like crazy Media searching For good news to give us hope And give them hope too. Choosing not to clean Because I know there will be Time for it later. Choosing to clean now Because I know I will be Glad I did later. Thinking of places I’m glad not to be in now And those I still love. Sweet whiff of supper Slow cooking tantalizing While I watch Frasier Counting on science Admiring the leadership Of our officials Dreaming a future When this time will be the past That made us all wiser.

WEDNESDAYS

It’s Wednesday. I like Wednesdays, always have. In school days and work days, Wednesday was the point of departure. A week that started out well was going better by Wednesday. In a week that started poorly, the arrival of Wednesday heralded the promise of hope for the weekend. Even in retirement, Wednesday has held a bit of magic. I think of Wednesday March 11 as the most recent normal day of my life. It contained a bit of everything: the happy routine of bridge club, the pleasure of lunch with a friend, the satisfaction of successfully shopping for a new purse, the excitement of packing for a couple of nights stay at my sister’s house, and the wonder of gently singing a dying woman into a deep and peaceful sleep. Today is Wednesday. It is almost 10:00 and I am still in my housecoat. Later today my son will drive by, roll down his car window and hand me an envelope while giving a cheery greeting and telling me he loves me. Who knew He’d start shouting those words in public? I will take a walk with my neighbour. Several weeks ago we decided to form a bubble around ourselves and protect each other from the possible dangers of spreading a virus through close physical contact with others. I will call one neighbour I haven’t spoken to in a month of isolation. I will talk to a relative who has tested positive for COVID 19. I will answer whoever phones me—possibly being rude if the call is a junk call. Being rude can be fun. I will join a storytellers’ meeting on Zoom. I will cook myself a balanced supper and eat it slowly while watching back-to-back episodes of Frasier. I will record a story on the iPhone and send it to friends, because I have decided that every Wednesday will be Story Wednesday until life gets back to normal. There are many things I will not do. I will not play bridge with my buddies, or dine at a restaurant, or enter a store, or pass through the door of a long-term care centre, or plan a trip. Even with all the things you cannot do, it is surprising how much you can get done on a Wednesday!

GRANNY AT THE ZOO

“Granny, I need an adult to play red panda with me,” says Ben, age seven. It is late afternoon on a hot sunny vacation day. We are three generations, sharing a two-storey hotel room. Kids and Granny sleep on the lower floor. Parents sleep directly above. Ben’s parents, pleased to see Granny taking over, are headed for the shower. “Okay Ben, I say with more confidence than I feel. “What do I have to do?” “It’s easy,” says Ben. “I am a red panda in a zoo. You are giving tours.” Our hotel room is ideally arranged for this endeavor. The zoo is a top bunk that doubles as Ben’s bed. The staircase runs up alongside the bunks. Near the top of the stairs there’s a hole in the wall that affords climbers a good view of the bunk. Ben heads for his habitat. I head for the stairs, examining my credentials as I go. . I am suspecting that my knowledge and experience have not adequately prepared me for this job. On the plus side, I was once seven years old and I have presented myself to others as an animal. I was fairly convincing as a pig perhaps, or a dog, possibly a chicken and occasionally a turkey. My expertise came organically. These were the inhabitants in the farm yards of my youth and my knowledge of them was acquired without the enhancement of formal study. I knew where they slept and what they ate. I could have given an impromptu tour of a farm yard to impress any grandchild. As for the red panda, I’ve never been near one. How much do I know about the species? Absolutely nothing. In a desperate bid to buy myself some time, I kneel on the stairs and assemble a crowd of imaginary children, accompanied by imaginary parents. “Notice the panda’s red coat,” I declare, hoping that the red panda has been named descriptively. Later I will ask myself why I didn’t decline this job opportunity at the outset. But I know the answer. The parents needed a shower. With unwarranted optimism I summon my creative powers. Suddenly I remember that I am a tour guide with duties that extend beyond animal description. The safety of the animals and the visitors is my utmost concern. “Please keep your children well back from the fence,” I admonish the parents who have come to the zoo, pointing an accusing finger at one imaginary mother who has allowed a toddler to cross the line. “And don’t even consider feeding Red Panda,” I scold. “That peanut in your hand could choke this precious creature.” To reinforce the point, I pause in my speech and glare at the assembled crowd. “Tell them more,” says Ben. “Tell them about me.” Later I will ask myself why I didn’t volunteer to be the red panda and invite Ben to be the tour guide. Now, grasping at straws, I turn to the imaginary children, a question in my voice. “Can you tell me,” I say, “what is the difference between the red panda and other pandas?” I am hoping there is more than one kind of panda. Perhaps pandas are like bears. Maybe there are brown pandas and black pandas. The imaginary children have been silenced by my previous scolding. They wait for me to answer, and I wonder another thing. How long does it take for the average Canadian parent to have a shower? I keep that question to myself. Suddenly I remember that Ben and I are not alone. I seize the opportunity to extend my reach. “Are there any children not on this tour who can tell me about the different kinds of pandas?” As I say this, I am appealing directly to Ben’s five-year-old brother Evan. He has observed my performance in uncharacteristic silence, but now he comes to my rescue. “There are red pandas and giant pandas,” he tells me and the imaginary audience. “The giant pandas are bears. The red pandas are cats.” “Well done,” I enthuse. “What else can you tell us about the red panda?” “Granny,” says Ben, “Evan is not a human. He is a cloud leopard in the cage next to mine. I want you to tell them what I eat.” I want to tell them this also, and I would tell them, if I knew. Another inspiration hits me. “Hello red panda,’ I say cloyingly, keeping my hands well back from the cage. “You are certainly a hungry fellow. Tell these tourists what you are eating right now.” “Bamboo,” says my red panda. “They have planted it especially for me. Now tell them where I live.” Hmmm. Where does the red panda live? I’m pretty sure I won’t get away with asking Ben to tell the audience where he lives. So I check my mental library. I’ve never been to Africa Asia or Australia so they might be there. I’ve never heard mention of red pandas in south America, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t any in Edmonton. I decide to take a chance. “We find red pandas in Asia,” I say, “In China.” “Mostly in Nepal,” says the cloud leopard in the cage next to Ben. I think of Nepal, everything I know about Nepal. Isn’t that where Everest is? “Look for red pandas in the mountains,” I say, “on the upper slopes.” This seems to satisfy Ben. “Now tell them about me,” says Evan the cloud leopard. Unfortunately, I know as much about the cloud leopard as I knew about the red panda. Still I forge ahead. While I give the speech about the dangers of feeding the cloud leopard, and scold the imaginary parents for letting their children come too close to the cage, I reflect on how times have changed. When I was Seven I came home from school and turned on the television. There I learned about history and nature. The Flintstones taught me about life in the Stone Age and the Beverly Hillbillies educated me about life in Tennessee. Bugs Bunny taught me everything I needed to know about rabbits. Much of the time was spent watching commercials and preparing my Christmas list. In contrast, Ben and Evan know nothing about commercials because their parents don’t pay for cable television. Mommy downloads nature videos and podcasts. When Christmas comes near she says, “Granny, why don’t you get them a subscription to Kids Geographic?” This selective exposure has led to a limited education. They have taught me that the red-crested cardinal is a tanager not a cardinal, and the pine marten is a mammal while the purple martin is a bird. So far they’ve shown little interest in learning about Fred and Wilma Flintstone. And here is a problem. The parents are enjoying their shower. What is a granny to do? Suddenly I have a great idea. It is time to swallow my pride. “Evan,” I say, “Before I conduct the tour, I need a little education. Would you please tell me a few things about the cloud leopard?”

MOVIES

David and I spent 47 years together. During that time we saw very few movies. We were not much harmed by this lack, but it did stunt our capacity to participate in conversations about movies and to enjoy watching the Academy Awards. We might have watched more movies had it not been for the combination of two factors: David was a loud whisperer and a quiet sleeper. Had he been a quiet whisperer and a loud sleeper the situation might have been entirely different. But then, if I had been a sighted person rather than a blind person, none of it would have mattered. Movie theatres were fewer, larger and more crowded back in 1972 when our dating life began. We would wait in line for tickets and wedge into seats among strangers sitting beside, in front and behind. Things would be fine in this cozy environment until David would notice something happening on the screen and determine that I needed to know it. Then he would whisper a description—sort of whisper--more like a mutter really. “They’re walking across a street. Really tall buildings on both sides.” It suited me fine, but our fellow watchers didn’t like it much. If you listened carefully, you could hear them grumbling. “Quieter,” I’d whisper. It was my best advice, but he didn’t like it much. “I can’t be quieter,” he’d mutter. “Try harder,” I’d whisper—well, maybe it was more of a yelling whisper. Nobody liked it much. Not David. Not the people around us. Still we soldiered along for a while, searching every theatre for the least inhabited space where David could mutter descriptions. If there was one point, one single event that changed our behavior, it was likely the evening when we bumbled obliviously into a German movie with English sub-titles. Five minutes later we were back in the lobby, beging for a refund. “Other customers don’t like it when I read the subtitles to Wendy,” David sanctimoniously explained to the reluctant teen-ager behind the cash register. With no manager on site, he cut his losses and refunded our ticket price. It seemed that many people might be better off if David and I watched TV movies at home. Fortunately, he was a good-natured guy. If he regretted exchanging the big screen for our 13-inch black and white he did not complain. We would find a comfortable position, quite often lying on the couch together. The movie would start. He would describe the action in a normal voice. All would be well. As the movie progressed I would find it easier to follow, being familiar with the characters and what they might do. There was not so much need for help from David. But every silver lining has its cloud. While I was following the plot, he was falling asleep, only I wouldn’t know it, his being a quiet sleeper and all. “Bang bang!” a gun would shoot. “Who got shot?” I’d demand to know. “Shot? I don’t know,” David would reply sleepily. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” This is how a tiny spark of lovers’ quarrel blows into a raging blaze. “If you loved me you’d stay awake,” I’d shout. Neither of us liked it much. We were happily married, perhaps because we learned to reduce the possibility of those bang bang moments. They seldom occurred if we limited our movie watching to movies we’d already seen. Take, for example, The Sound of Music, or It’s A Wonderful Life. Now that David is gone, I find to my great surprise that I am watching a lot of movies, as many as one a day, sometimes two in a row, occasionally three. The stars have aligned to make it possible. Shaw channel 49 shows nothing but movies, I have plenty of spare time, and things have changed more than you might imagine. There’s no longer much need to whisper to blind people in theatres. Many movies now come with description for the visually impaired. You can ask the ticket clerk for a little machine with earphones to hear the extra information. At home you can push a few buttons and if they have recorded description you can hear it on your TV along with the movie sounds. There are many movies which have not yet been described. These are annoying, but now there are options that don’t require the participation of a spouse. If you need to know who shot who when a gun bangs, you can always get the anser in a full plot outline from Wikipedia. You don’t build up much movie history watching one or two new movies per year. The films I watch these days, so old to others, are new to me. You might recognize some of the names: To Kill a Mockingbird, Steel Magnolias, The bells of St. Mary’s, In The Heat Of The Night, Casablanca, Funny Girl, the Judy Garland version of A star Is Born. With great relish I drop their names in conversations with friends, mentioning plot details with such vivid intensity that I might have heard them only yesterday. Those who haven’t seen these movies in four decades are left with the impression that I am a remarkable movie enthusiast with a fabulous memory. Of course, when you discuss movies with friends, the topic inevitably turns to modern movies, to recent and future academy awards. In this realm I am no wiser than I used to be. But reputation is everything. Having already established myself in their eyes as a movie expert, I find it convenient to sit back with great interest and ask for their opinions.

MARSHMALLOWS

In the months following David’s death our son Lawrence would come over to watch TV in my livingroom. There I would occasionally come upon him, sitting in the chairs his father used to occupy, reaching down the sides to retrieve long lost treasures trapped in the upholstery between the arms and the cushions. “What are you finding?” I’d ask. I would be thinking of spare change and other things that escape from pockets. “Marshmallows,” he’d reply. And sure enough, he’d come up with a dusty dried-up miniature cylinder that must have been there for a while. “To the garbage,” I’d say. “In a minute,” he’d reply. “There are only minis here. I guess when Dad was eating the bigger ones they never fell down that far.” I’ve always been drawn to the sensuality of marshmallows. It’s not just the sweetness that compels me. I love their shape, their ends, flat enough to stand for themselves, and their round, rollable bodies. A marshmallow is a silent treat. Ten of them could roll off the counter and you’d still be able to hear a pin drop as they hit the floor. They are pliable yet resilient. They know what shape they are supposed to be, and somehow they manage to hold themselves and be pillow-soft at the same time. They are simultaneously smooth and rough. Heat them a bit and they’ll stick your fingers together, strong as Crazy Glue. Run warm water over your fingers and the marshmallow glue will disappear completely. From the perspective of physical properties, a marshmallow is a wondrous thing. As I began thinking about writing this piece, I was surprised to find that the only thing I really knew about marshmallows was how to eat them. How were they named? How were they made? Fortunately, Wikipedia was there to save the day. There is a plant, known as the mallow that grows in marshes and damp areas of Europe, Asia and North Africa. The mention of it brings to mind a lush green tree with puffy confections on all the branches. Miniatures would peak out from between the leaves, waiting to grow. But it wasn’t quite that simple. Showing characteristic leadership, the ancient Egyptians ground up the mallow roots, mixed them with other substances, whipped air into the sticky mixture and ate it for medicinal purposes. Much later the French figured out that you could fill a deep tray with corn starch, make holes in it, and pour in the melted marshmallow mixture. When the centre cooled and the starch hardened on the exterior, you could lift out the marshmallows which now had a soft elastic skin. Even later the process was refined to exclude the mallow plant. Modern marshmallows are made by heating corn syrup with sugar and mixing it with dissolved gelatin. The gooey mass is then fed through an extruder. It emerges as a long tube which is subsequently cut into pieces and coated in cornstarch. Lawrence has never cared much for family parties. Any excuse to miss one would do. So I was taken by surprise when he said we ought to have a party on January 10, the first anniversary of David’s death, all the more proof that grief changes people in ways you’d never predict. “We need to have marshmallows,” he said, “And Safeway white cake with thick icing.” It sounded like just the sort of party you’d have for our sweet-loving David—just the sort of party you’d have with him. He’d be there for sure, celebrating with family and inhaling the sugar. I could feel the incongruity of such an event, having David absent yet somehow present at the same time. I wondered whether pieces of his favourite cake would mysteriously vanish when we weren’t looking. Lawrence bought the cake on his own, but he and I did the marshmallow shopping together. It was a task he would not take lightly. I could see that he must have shopped for marshmallows with his dad. He lifted the bags from the shelf and inhaled their sweet aroma. Only the freshest, softest, fluffiest specimens would do. Each marshmallow had to stack independently, never sticking to its neighbours. You could assess this by gently caressing the packages. We came away with two large bags that met all his specifications. Like Lawrence, I am prone to sentimentality these days, drawn to things that can bring David to life—if only in the imagination. Marshmallows had a double meaning in our family. David was our personal marshmallow. If you asked him to account for an act of kindness or generosity, he’d grin and say: “I’m a marshmallow.” That was the only explanation you’d get. It was I who first assigned the label to him. I believe I was angry at the time. “You are a marshmallow,” I bellowed, pointing an accusing finger in his direction. Just what it was that caused the outburst I cannot now recall. No doubt he had raised my hackles by caving in sweetly on some point of order with the children. Did he allow somebody to have dessert when I had specifically warned that there would be no dessert until the dinner plate was cleaned? Did he permit someone to go swimming without having cleaned up the bedroom clutter? Whatever it was that he had done, I wanted him to know that I expected a firmer approach. But in choosing the name I had made a serious miscalculation. Calling him a marshmallow as a shaming device was about as effective as accusing skating ice of being smooth, or blaming diamonds for sparkling. It was a compliment. He loved marshmallows, and if he was one of them, then he had found his tribe. He was proud to be a member. If he could keep them around the house long enough for baking, David used miniature marshmallows to make Rice Krispies squares. He was so good at it that our daughter Ruth asked him to make a Rice Krispies cake for her wedding. In preparation He shopped for four nested wedding cake pans, 2 pounds of butter, 104 cups of cereal and 8 large bags of fragrant, soft, perfect miniature marshmallows. In the hot days of summer we were both happy that Ruth was getting married and sad that she would be moving away. David wanted to choose the perfect time for the making of the cake--to ensure the freshness and also leave spare time in case things didn’t go as well as expected. July evenings in Alberta tend to be warm, lit by a brilliant sun that sets some time around 10:00 and leaves a long soft twilight. They lure you outside for walking and barbecuing and gardening. But now and then you get a series of scorching days, followed by an evening where the sky bruises to black, the rain hammers everything and lightning flashes in all four directions to the undulating beat of continuous thunder. It was on such a night, with the windows wide open to let in the fresh cooling breeze, that we set about the task of constructing the huge cake that would send our daughter off to spend a new life in Ontario. With the tempest raging outside and me acting as baker’s helper, we measured and melted marshmallows into puffy sticky clouds. Then we mixed, marvelling at the way things change. It would never have occurred to us to use Rice Krispies squares as a wedding cake. But the cake we were constructing on this stormy night would boldly grace Ruth’s head table, adorned with a spray of removable flowers. It would be cut generously at the wedding, and served on the spot. The guests would snap it up and go back for seconds. Ruth would proudly say, “My dad made that cake!” And so it came to pass, that on January 10, 2020, with Ruth and her family living in Ontario, Lawrence, Mark and their loved-ones settled at my dining room table to gorge on over-sized slices of thickly-frosted cake and unlimited quantities of marshmallows. With me occupying the chair at the head where David would have sat, we indulged in marshmallow nostalgia. Lawrence and Mark recalled the Christmas morning when Mark’s wife Tracey gave them marshmallow guns—yes, guns that shoot marshmallows. Reverting to joyous childhood, they were pulling the triggers and firing marshmallows at one another. “Those marshmallows go to the garbage,” I said. As they retrieved the spent ammunition from dusty corners David said, “Are you just going to throw them out? Could you not eat them?” Eating Marshmallows was one of David’s favourite pastimes. He ate them in the evenings while watching TV. He also ate them when we camped. We tended to camp simply, in the bush where you find the mosquitos. We didn’t generally have running water, and we never had a good supply of running water hot enough to melt the sticky marshmallowness off our fingers. If we used mosquito repellant the marshmallows would take on the flavour. If we didn’t, then we had to scratch at the bites with sticky fingers. You could cut down on the stickiness by clapping a toasted marshmallow between two cookies and calling it a smore. But a smore was more fattening than a plain roasted marshmallow eaten on its own. I don’t suppose it had occurred to David that marrying a blind woman would relegate him to a life of roasting marshmallows for two. “Blind people don’t roast marshmallows,” I told him the first time he handed me a roasting stick. Just to prove it, I torched the first three I tried. “Blow them out when they catch fire,’ he said. “Blind people don’t see the flames until it’s too late,” I said. Sighing in resignation, David settled into a pattern. He would eat one marshmallow raw, roast one for me, then roast one for himself. Every so often he’d over-roast one that had been intended for himself, and if he could blow the flame out before it blackened, he’d hand it to me. I never minded a little bit of ash. You can know a lot about eating marshmallows, and still have more to learn. Sitting at my table, remembering his dad, Lawrence rolled a marshmallow in icing from the Safeway cake. “Icing on a marshmallow?” we exclaimed. “Did David do that?” “I don’t think so,” said Lawrence. “But it’s good. I think he would have liked it.”

WRITING THE CHRISTMAS LETTER: 2019

“If you use the bad parts to get to the good parts you’ve done something good.” Elton John In the last week before Christmas I agonized over the production of a Christmas letter, the kind you add a personal sentence to, and send out to everybody who writes to you, and everybody you expect to get something from, even some people you don’t get anything from and haven’t for years. Back in November, when I carefully contemplated what to write in such a letter, I had decided not to write at all. That plan held up very well until a week before Christmas when people began writing to me. David and I used to co-produce a Christmas letter back in the days when it could be signed with both our names. I’d make a start some time in November, asking David what he thought we ought to write. He’d mention a few things. I would keep at it, adding and deleting, until I deemed it ready for proof-reading. David would correct the typing and add a thought or two. “That’s fine,” he’d say. “It’s ready to send.” Without David in the physical world, I believed the writing of my 2019 Christmas letter would be a solitary pursuit. But then, things got complicated. It seemed I was dealing with two versions of myself. There was the me who had decided to write a Christmas letter, and a reluctant woman sitting at my computer, refusing to press the keys. “How hard can it be to write a Christmas letter?” I said to the reluctant woman. “All you have to do is tell people what you did this year. Start at the beginning. Here. I’ll show you.” Pushing her aside, I wrote a paragraph. “David died on January 10,” I wrote. “His last few days were difficult because we often couldn’t understand what he wanted to say. But he was determined to be understood. He insisted that I immediately put money for 2019 into his tax free savings account.” He didn’t say, “You will have the money after I die if you put it in while I’m still alive.” But we both knew what he meant. He meant: “Go do it right now.” I showed my paragraph to the reluctant woman. She was outraged. “You can’t start a Christmas letter that way,” she scolded. So I pushed Delete and started over. “We were all saddened by David’s death at the beginning of the year,” I wrote. The reluctant woman stayed my hand. “That’s not entirely true,” she said. The truth is, you weren’t that sad because you thought it was time. You’re a lot sadder now than you were then. One of your favourite memories happened right after he died. Remember how you sat with him, marvelling at how his twisted tortured body had suddenly relaxed, how you lingered with him, holding his hand in absolute peace. That doesn’t sound very sad to me.” “Should I take it out then?” I asked her. “Yes,” she said. “Should I add the part about being peaceful at the end?” The reluctant woman was—well—reluctant. “Maybe you should skip David altogether and do what other people do. Try describing your grandchildren.” I pressed Delete and started over. “All five grandchildren make a project of delighting their Granny. Carys is a gymnast with a fondness for unicorns and Lewis can charm you while climbing on top of a table at lightning speed. Ben has learned to read in two languages, Evan builds something with Lego every morning before he goes to school, and Clara spent most of last week pretending to be a baby lion.” After that, I couldn’t think of another thing to say. So I wandered around the house, pouring cups of coffee, setting them down on various tables and losing track of them before I’d finished. “Come back here and finish this letter,” nagged the woman who had previously been sitting at my computer. “And don’t push the Delete key. This stuff about your grandchildren has potential. It just needs a little fluffing up. Take a break from that topic and tell them about your travels.” Feeling a little bit encouraged I wrote that I’d made four trips to Guelph, one to spirit River, one to Jasper and one to Vancouver. I spiced it up with some stories of cruising in French Polynesia. I was conscientious about naming people who had been there for me during my travels. Then I got up, searched the house, and used the microwave to warm the coffee from some of the abandoned cups. “Be happy,” I said to myself. When I sat down again I deliberately wrote about happy things. I wrote that I was happy to be living in my apartment, happy to be walking in my neighbourhood, to be playing bridge and going to exercise classes and writing for fun with new friends at the Joy of Writing Club. I wrote that I had joined two choirs. I mentioned that I still facilitated hope groups, having not quite completely retired from my work in hope studies. All of this was true, and my confidence grew—until it didn’t. In its place there came a tsunami of grief that sent me running to my bed where I howled in abject misery. “What now?” I cried out to the reluctant woman. “Do I have to quit, after all the work I’ve done?” “I don’t know,” she said. “But don’t push the delete button.” Instead of continuing the letter, I went back to the computer and read an on-line article in Psychology Today. “You can’t outrun grief,” the author boldly declared. The reluctant woman considered this. “You are the living proof of that,” she said to me. “Perhaps you should grieve a while. Maybe you’ll be able to finish the letter tomorrow.” In our forty-five years of marriage David and I read hundreds of Christmas letters. Some were funny. One relative always drew her year in cartoons. Another used the language of a medieval castle. Some were informative—births, marriages and such. Others were boring. Enough said about that. But there was one letter that chilled us so thoroughly to the bone that we had to turn to each other for comfort. It was a devastating life summary, sent by Cousin Lila. It was cloaked in sadness and despair. Her husband and all his siblings had Alzheimer disease. She wrote details about each of them. She ended the litany by wishing all of us a Merry Christmas. “Lila is depressed,” I said to David. He said, “Everything in this letter is probably true, but I wouldn’t send it at Christmas time.” With this in mind, I turned back to the reluctant woman. “I’m not Cousin Lila,” I said, “and I’m not Susie Sunshine either. I want to write a Christmas letter. Who am I?” anyway?” “You’re a grumpy, weepy, unpredictable griever living a basically happy life,” she said. And so it was that I found myself back at the computer the following morning, cleaning up my writing and developing an opening paragraph something I hoped would tell a truth that could reasonably be followed by Merry Christmas wishes. “It will be a different sort of Christmas this year. No doubt each of us will miss David in our own way, though it has been some time since we had a Christmas that wasn’t influenced by the need to accommodate illness. I would say that grief in my case is less a gradual process of healing over time and more a situation where kamikaze attacks occur when you are doing well in the big picture. I’ve been concentrating on learning new things, having fun and paying it forward as a tribute to the small army of people who have been lighting up my life over the past few years.” The reluctant woman and I checked it over with a critical eye. It was a longish letter, a little too perky, a little too busy. But the time had come to add personal greetings and send it anyway. Out went the copies, one by one. After so much dilly-dallying, I had expected to be pleased. Instead, I found myself turning apologetically to the memory of David. “I’m sorry that letter seems so cheerful,” I said to him. “I failed to mention how broken-hearted I am. They should be told that every fiber of my being still wishes you were here. I wanted to tell them how utterly bereft I get when I think that all my future Christmas letters will be written without you. How could I have edited it all out?” But the memory of David was remarkably unperturbed. “We couldn’t have sent such a letter,” was his response. “It’s not in our nature. If we couldn’t have said something good, we wouldn’t have said anything at all. But I do think you could have mentioned the tax-free savings money we put in my name back in January. You’ve had that money in savings for a whole year now. That’s $5,500 plus interest you won’t have to pay taxes on. It is an accomplishment worth celebrating.” “Too late for this Christmas letter,” I said. “That story will have to be written elsewhere.”

GOOD-BYE TO NURSING HOME LIFE (Nursing Home Life, part 15)

“To everything there is a season” Ecclesiastes 3:1 A most extraordinary chapter in my life has come to an end. I have said good-bye to nursing home life. I am well. I am grateful. I am happy. I am wondering. I am grateful: that my city—edmonton—has a place, Laurier House where couples can make a home together when one member requires services provided in the public system for long-term care; that so many relatives and friends integrated time with us into their regular routines, gifting us withcomfort and laughter, the continuation of our past life into the present; That the staff of Laurier House were there to help as best they could, while their call system constantly summoned them to hurry out in service of others; That we had the financial resources to supplement the care at Laurier House by paying for extra care; That we were able to engage private care givers who would join me in caring for David as a treasured person—rare and precious; That we had the funds to purchase new wheelchairs as David’s needs changed and a computer that could speak for him when his own voice could not; That David was able to be with us to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary, and Christmas with all five of our grandchildren, and Boxing Day with his sister and her family; That David was able to die at our home, in his own bed, attended by our son and the Laurier House staff; That we could keep him with us after death through the afternoon and evening, still warm and more relaxed than he had been in many years, while friends and family gathered in the spirit of a party around him; That more than 400 people attended his memorial and so many others sent messages saying they would like to have been there; That David and I were blessed with a shared enduring love strong enough to sustain us together from our late teens to official senior citizen status; That I could move out of Laurier House and back into the condo we had purchased in 2015, so that it would be there for me when the end came for David. I am happy to be cooking my own food, to be eating vegetables sautéed to crisp perfection, to be showering without wondering if a nurse will open the bathroom door. And inasmuch as I am happy to have moved out of Laurier House, I am even happier to be able to say that I stayed there until the end. I am wondering if I am done with nursing home life. Perhaps I will someday need such a place for my own care. And I am wondering how we could find it in ourselves to look seriously at nursing home life with an eye focused well above the minimum standards, so that they could be places where we ourselves would want to live. A home is more than a physical facility. It is a place where a person can feel precious. Feeling precious, when you are unable to care for yourself, happens when others have the time to care for you. Most of us won’t have a wife to move in with us, and many won’t have the money to hire extra help. Those of us who pay the bills through our taxes will need to set the standards now to provide the time, or risk being cared for later in a hurry.

THE MUSIC OF CHRISTMAS (Nursing Home Life, part 14)

“Mostly Christmas makes me feel” –Linnea Good Earlier on the blog I made a short list of songs I love to wallow by. But now that Christmas is coming, there are so many more songs. And what better time can there be for wallowing in sadness, nostalgia, joy and completely inexplicable reactions? It’s a musical bonanza, two of my best Christmas weeping songs presented consecutively on a single album, Winter Song by Sarah McLachlan. How magically transforming it is to lubricate the tear ducts with Sarah’s version of Joni Mitchell’s River, in preparation for the heart-breaking torrent of McLachlan’s own Winter Song! I could be tapping my toes to Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. In fact, I do tap my toes when it comes on the radio, but when I want to play Christmas music, I Hear myself asking Siri to play Winter Song. It’s not nostalgia that draws me in, it’s the connection to feelings of sadness and loss, the self-indulgent tug toward a moment of melancholy against a backdrop of comfort and joy. . If, like me, you are a closet whiner,sad songs are the perfect outlet for expression. Fortunately, Christmas offers a wide selection of choices with something to meet every emotional need. For example, there’s Silent Night, the song that still holds the record as my biggest crying song. The whole thing started some time in my thirties. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But every Christmas, I’d be at a concert or a church service and we’d start singing Silent Night. Before we got to sleeping in heavenly peace the beauty of the thing would overwhelm me. The rest of the singers would have to finish singing without me. I’d be sniffling, wiping tears, my throat stretched tighter than a drum. No more singing from me. No particular sadness in it. Here was nostalgia at its most pervasive. Each year that song would start, and I’d remember how I cried last year. The memory would set my glands to drizzling. The first cure for the problem came to me quite accidentally the year I volunteered to play the piano at the late church service on Christmas Eve. The stage was set for the worst of my crying. Near the end of the service the congregation would begin to sing Silent Night. They would pick up the tall candles they had been given when they entered the church. The lights would go down and the first candle would be lit. Then each person would light their candle from the candle of the person next to them. The beauty of the thing would overwhelm me. Normally I’d be a wet rag by the time all the candles were lit and the third verse was sung. But this time I was the musician and everyone was counting on me. The burden of responsibility calmed my nerves. It was a Christmas miracle! All the beauty and no tears from me. I played in heavenly peace. It worked, and I had high hopes for singing that song in the future. But it only worked when I played the piano for other singers. If I didn’t play, I still cried. Then came the second cure. It was the year when another pianist volunteered to play the late service. Members of my family were visiting that night. I packed my purse with Kleenex and invited them to join David and me. Each of us picked up a candle as we entered the church. Then, near the end of the service, Carla played the first notes of Silent Night. As the peaceful music began, my father, summoning the louder voice of a man who has forgotten his hearing aid, turned his candle toward my sister. “Where is your candle?” he boomed. “I don’t know,” she whispered. All was still calm at that point. “Where’s your candle?” he boomed more loudly, thinking perhaps she had not heard him. “I don’t know,’ she shouted back. We’d made it to Holy infant so tender and mild. Then began a scurrying search of the floor for the missing candle. By now we were at the second Silent night, Holy night. Quick as a flash, while shepherds quaked at the sight, I handed my candle to my father to give to my sister. “This is an extra one,” I shouted, hoping only to have to say it once, particularly because it was a lie. I wanted—no, needed—him to be quiet. At that point, all thoughts of crying had left me. I felt like a teen-ager, the way you do when you want to pretend that these people are weird strangers who just happened to cross your path. But my father is a conscientious man. That evening he was bent on making sure that everyone was included. “Where’s your candle?” he asked, glancing at my now empty hand. We had made it to the third Silent Night. At this point, my thoughts turned from utter embarrassment to sympathy for my poor David, the long-suffering man who had, in all innocence, married into this family. His only possible escape could come with a messy expensive divorce, and I just didn’t think he was up to it. I started breathing deeply, lest I should develop a penchant for fainting. I shook my head vehemently at David, who was offering to hand me his candle. “You keep it,” I whispered as loudly as I could. I didn’t trust myself to hold a fire in my trembling hand. Things settled down a bit then. My father stopped worrying about my candle. All was calm, until we got to the end of the song. We blew out our candles and then sat down. There was a snap! There was a soft cry of surprise. There was no point trying to pretend the noise wasn’t caused by my family. It was my sister, jumping up to retrieve the two halves of an unburned candle upon which she had just sat. Apparently it had been on her chair all along. Mercifully the service promised to end. The piano struck the first chords of Joy To The World. Beside me stood David, whom I now noticed, was taking deep breaths in a vain attempt to suppress fits of laughter. Of course the laughing attack spread to me, and then to others nearby, the way a wildfire might spread if you weren’t careful with a candle. Since then I have become philosophical and more than a little curious about the strange relationship between emotions and songs. Christmases come and Christmases go. Each holiday season brings its songs and its feelings. This year I’m choosing Sarah McLachlan for the melancholy effect. That said, I expect to hear Joy To The World, which will likely cause me to break out in a broad smile. And when I’m asked to sing Silent Night, I’ll do my best not to laugh. But I might not succeed in that.

NORMAL (Nursing Home Life, part 11)

Feeding a pureed supper to David in bed is one of the jobs I’ve taken on here at Laurier House. Given the choice, he would prefer to be chewing his food, feeding himself with a fork and sitting anywhere other than in bed. Butt here he is. I am feeding him because he chose me for the job. Being chosen for this task is one of many surprises in my current life. My previous puree experiences occurred nearly four decades ago when our children were babies. In preparation for parenthood I had read a book that suggested the need for a blind feeder to locate the mouth of the fed-one with one hand and hold the spoon with the other. I tried it on Baby Mark. Mark, at a tender age, had yet to achieve a command of language. Despite this barrier, he was clearly able to communicate. He responded to my first attempt by making a rule for living: Never allow yourself to be spoon fed by a blind person! Here was his reasoning, so far as I could understand it at the time. “A blind person wielding a feeding instrument is a dangerous character. Trapped in your high chair at the mercy of such a person, you could lose an eye, snort peas into your nose, or later find yourself fishing chicken out of an ear. At the very least you might get a sloppy chin. Fortunately for Mark and the siblings who followed him, mothers are known for their ability to understand the wishes of their babies. The situation might have posed a problem were it not for the fact that David was quite willing to feed the children whenever feeding was required. I responded with benign acceptance. Apparently it never occurred to me to assert my competence, or my right to be treated equally as a mother. I did not feel slighted or rejected, and if I felt any regret I have forgotten it. The question of my using cutlery to feed anybody was laid to rest. It rested in peace for nearly four decades. We moved to Laurier House in preparation for the time when I would require significant help in order to meet David’s needs. That said, it would have been difficult to predict in advance which needs would be met by the staff and which would be met by me. Choices have been made at various points along the way. David is a fully-informed adult, definitely not a baby. So when I give him a choice about something, I try to ensure that it is a real choice. I recall the way we used to present choices to our two-year-olds when we were trying to rush out of the door in the mornings, already at risk of being late for work. : “Shall I put your shoes on now, or in fifteen seconds? Shall I start with this shoe or the other shoe?” So perhaps I ought to confess that it was a little disingenuous for me to ask a question when I never doubted what the answer would be. In my mind, there was only one choice. Nonetheless, I asked the question. “Would you rather be fed in bed by me or by the staff?” “You,: he said. “Me?” I said. I thought I must have misunderstood. “You,” he said. I didn’t ask for an explanation. It seemed wise to assume his choice was motivated by love. “Shall I use a spoon or a fork?” I queried, blundering uncertainly through this uncharted territory. “Spoon,’ he said. No doubt about that answer. The man still values his eyes and recognizes that his nose is more vulnerable to a misdirected fork. I see now that there was wisdom in the book I consulted so long ago. If you are a blind person who has been chosen to feed another person you can use one hand to find a mouth and the other to guide a spoon. A bib and a cloth will help you compensate for any errors you might make. This is our latest version of having dinner together at home in this unlikely place. I feed David while we watch the 5:00 news. And where are the children whose mother never fed them from a fork or a spoon? Well, just the other night Mark brought two of our grandchildren to stay with us while he tooke their mother to dinner. He brought food for them. The youngest of Mark’s children is Baby Lewis. Baby Lewis doesn’t talk yet, but his mouth is sporting two beautifully sharp teeth. I positioned his little chair near David’s bed. There he sat, scooping fries into his fists, using his built-in blades to saw them off. While he ate, he watched me use two hands to feed Granddad with a spoon. His sister Carys sat nearby, two-and-a-half years older and a thousand times wiser. The nurse who brought David’s puffer seemed a bit surprised to find us there, but to the four of us, everything seemed quite normal.

REMEMBERING PIRATE

A dog named Pirate died in Calgary on April 20 2018. He died a peaceful death with medical assistance. You may have known him by another name and longed for his return. If so, we want you to know that he lived a good life, all things considered. His death will be mourned by many people who encountered him in the course of his life’s journey. One of them is me. Pirate was a lucky dog, lucky in a context of hope, which is to say that a considerable number of bad things happened around him and somehow he managed to move forward with his own special blend of forbearance and enthusiasm. If he had a motto, a code to live by, I believe it would have been: “Seize the day and love the one you’re with.” Pirate was a white dog, a white dog with some brown. According to veterinary estimation, he was born some time in 2003, Part Shih Tzu, part terrier. He was a small, one-eyed curly-tailed creature whose complete life history has thus far been shrouded in mystery. We can trace it with certainty back to an August day in 2005 when Maxine Thompson of Lougheed Alberta noticed him wandering around Main Street, searching for a lover, or a friendly human. We’ll never know which it was, possibly both. He wore a tattered leather collar that bore no identification. His mud-caked hair hung low off his belly and drooped over his face. Maxine, recognizing a probable resemblance to a well-groomed Shih Tzu belonging to my father, asked Dad to take charge of his care. She promised she would find him a home if his owner had not been identified by the time she returned from an impending vacation. Thus my father began a process of bathing and trimming and ratty old collar disposal that eventually revealed a dog much life his own, except for the missing eye and the fully functioning proof of manhood. It also became obvious that, at some previous point, this dog had both learned to love humans and to build good relationships with them. Two weeks passed with no person stepping forward to make a claim. My father’s dog and his new playmate became fast friends. Maxine was still enjoying her vacation. Dad was rapidly taking on the mantle of a two-dog man, a man in serious danger of keeping two dogs when he needed only one. So he decided to give the dog to David and me “You need a dog,” he said. “Here is a free dog. He’s even house-trained.” Dad was right about one thing. He was, in fact, house-trained. Together on separate journeys, we and Pirate were to learn that there is no such thing as a free dog. We welcomed the dog into our Edmonton home with a brief tour that included a visit to the food bowl. Almost immediately new responsibilities began to emerge. The first was to give him a name to which he could answer if he should somehow escape from our unfenced yard. The second job was to build a fence, seeing as how he escaped from our yard at the first opportunity, and every subsequent opportunity, claiming our entire neighbourhood and the adjoining river valley park as his own. The third job was to find a veterinarian who could reduce his sexual longings and possibly his need to wander, vaccinate him against all forms of pestilence and advise on what should be done with the empty eye socket. David suggested that we call him Pirate. It seemed a good fit for a one-eyed wanderer who’d been living rough. Pirate thought so too. It only took him a day to get used to coming when we called him for a treat or a walk. Building a fence took a little longer. With considerable assistance from two sons and a neighbour, David fashioned a smart white picket fence enhancing the front exposure of our colonial-style home. A Caragana hedge provided protection at the side. The vet vaccinated Pirate against multiple threats, then performed four surgeries for which Pirate was not entirely grateful, one to eliminate the lust for fatherhood, one to clear the eye-socket of debris, and two more eye surgeries to clear debris that stubbornly remained. By the time he’d been with us for a month, we estimated the cost of our “free dog” at approximately $3,000, not including food. Nevertheless, Pirate continued to pursue the idea of being a free dog. From the very start, he consistently showed us two things. The first was that he loved us. The second was that he was committed to living a life befitting his new name. He showed his love by welcoming us home joyously whenever we returned from work, allowing us to pet him when he wasn’t busy, promoting our physical and mental health by insisting on daily walks regardless of the weather, and encouraging us to experience generosity by giving him unlimited treats. He established his reputation for piracy by claiming his right to free himself from bondage by any available means. There seemed no end to the methods he used to assert his freedom. In the days before the fence, he simply declined to observe the yard boundary. When we attached him to a chain, he paced up and down the veranda steps until the chain lodged in the cracks between the boards, then insisted that we free him immediately. When we replaced the chain with a rope, he spent ninety peaceful minutes chewing the rope into six-inch lengths, thereby rendering that rope ineligible for further employment. And when the fence was at last established, he dug a hole between the stocks of the tcaragana hedge and had already found some stinking dead thing to role in by the time his skulduggery was discovered. Yet it seemed that Pirate did not want to be free so much as he wanted to believe that he could be free if he chose to be. One night I heard him barking, so I went to the door to call him in. The louder I called, the louder he barked. At last, rushing barefoot into the yard to retrieve him, I found him on the outside of the front gate, demanding to know why it had taken me so long to open the gate so that he could come in for a treat to reward him for coming back instead of making us search for him. “Why didn’t you come back via the route through which you escaped?” I asked, while opening the treat bag. “The escape route only goes one way,” he replied. “Don’t you worry that you’ll be lost and uncared-for like you were when Maxine found you?” I asked. “Don’t you worry that you’ll be hit by a car when you’re wandering the streets?” “No,” he replied. “Why would I worry? I do okay, don’t I?” “You’re counting on luck,” I retorted. Indeed, he was a lucky dog. When we lost him in the park, a neighbour recognized him and brought him back to us. When a cat threatened to scratch out his other eye, he managed to negotiate a peaceful settlement. When I was hit by a car while holding his leash, he avoided being run over. Pirate was a digger. On the days when he wasn’t trying to escape, he dug holes for reasons we could not always understand. The second time he dug a hole in the middle of the lawn, we informed him that he simply had to change—or else. Or else what, we wondered when we saw evidence of the third lawn digging. Faced with Pirate’s reluctance to change his behavior, I e-mailed a letter of inquiry to an expert. “How can we convince our dog to stop digging holes?” The response was prompt and matter-of fact. “Terriers dig,” said the expert. “Get over it. Give him toys to play with, establish places where he is allowed to dig, and treat him so well that he won’t want to escape.” We bought more toys and considered ways to treat him better. “You can dig behind the pink peony,” I told Pirate, while dusting myself off after the first time I fell into the hole he had secretly dug behind the pink peony. “Thank you,” he said, failing to mention the new hole he had already dug behind the white peony. He’d buried a toy back there and apparently needed to dig it up. “You might as well dig behind the red peony too,” I said a few days later. So he did. Then he went back to digging under the hedge. The sons who had built the white picket fence unfurled a role of chicken wire which they installed amongst the stocks of the hedge. Digging under the chicken wire took longer than digging through the hedge alone. We considered this to be a victory. As the expert had told us, terriers dig. He was a dog who never failed to answer when opportunity barked. When a big scary canine would pass by the front gate he would tear across the yard at top speed, furious and threatening things he would do if only that gate weren’t there to protect the interloper. We never had to go home early to let him out because he could control his bodily functions for 12 or 14 hours. But if we returned home after a fifteen minute outing, it would be absolutely necessary that he should go out. He could manage fine in a daytime thunderstorm, but thunder in the night would catapult him trembling into the space between us in our bed, issuing a challenge. “are you the kind of unfeeling people who would force a frightened dog to sleep alone in the rockingchair?” If our mother had died, or our father, or our sister, if we were recovering after cancer surgery, or nursing a broken foot or a broken arm, he would nuzzle us sympatheticly for a few minutes, then invite us to move past the pain by taking him for a walk. Though his digging made us think of him as a terrier, he was only part terrier. Another part of him was Shih Tzu. Shih Tzus are known to be serially loyal, meaning that they attach easily to humans, then reattach to new humans just as easily. Knowing this, and knowing that he had once been known by some other name, I guess there was always some part of me fearing that a previous owner would come forward and claim him. After all, someone had taught him to love humans and to empty his bowels and bladder in appropriate places. This fear was repeatedly tested during more than 3000 walks in the 10 years we spent together. We walked in an off-leash dog park where people were constantly calling their dogs by name. I couldn’t help but wonder what Pirate was called before we named him Pirate. It seemed inevitable that one day, someone would shout; “Here Herbert!” or “Here Rover!” Then Pirate, recalling his past, would run to this person, tail wagging. So it didn’t seem all that surprising when, in the eighth year, a stranger walking toward us in the park said, “Is that Gracey?” I was speechless. “Pardon me?” said David. “Is that gracey?” “No,” said David. “It’s Pirate.” “It looks like Gracey,” said the man. “But maybe it isn’t.” Then he continued on his walk. I wondered if he was on his way to the police station to report a dog theft. “Are you Gracie?” I whispered fearfully to Pirate when we got home. “Please don’t be Gracey.” Pirate didn’t answer. If he was Gracey, he wasn’t letting on. That night I went to bed wondering what would happen if Pirate turned out to be Gracey. I needn’t have worried. He wasn’t Gracey. We were assured of this a few days later when, on another walk in the park, we came face to face with the real Gracey. There she was, a little white dog with brown markings, curly tailed, one-eyed, a mirror image of Pirate. Facing each other their good eyes met and so did their missing eyes. Apparently it’s not all that uncommon for Shih Tzus to be missing an eye. It has to do with the structure of their faces. Pirate may not have lost his eye in a fight as we had originally suspected. It might simply have fallen out. Serially loyal dogs like you better than other people during the time when they live with you. Pirate liked most people well enough, and some especially well. One of his favourites was Wayne, who lived in Calgary and was married to David’s sister Lorna. Wayne liked to take Pirate for walks when he was visiting us. Perhaps every stage of life is a stage of transition. Pirate was around during times of letting go, of giving up beloved patterns and future plans we didn’t even know we had until suddenly they were derailed. But while we agonized over the changes, he went forward, seemingly unflappable. Pirate’s ability to transfer loyalty served him well. His attraction to Wayne proved to be a lucky attachment. David developed disabilities that forced us to move from the colonial home with the smart white picket fence and the reinforced Caragana hedge. What were we to do with Pirate? “Wayne needs a dog to walk with,” said Lorna. “We’ll take Pirate.” Grateful as we were that he had a new home to go to, we couldn’t hide our tears when Wayne and Lorna loaded their van with Pirates toys and moved him to Calgary. I last saw Pirate a couple of years ago, on a brief visit with Lorna and Wayne in Calgary. He greeted me with pleasure, jumped into my lap for a five-minute pet, then ran upstairs to crawl into bed with Wayne. He and Wayne were still together there when I left the next morning. The switch of allegiance was complete. Given that I couldn’t keep him, I had to love him for that. Pirate was with Lorna when he died, having transferred his loyalty to her. He would have stuck with Wayne, but Wayne had become ill. He had moved to a care centre. In the process of dealing with Wayne’s illness, they’d exchanged their home for an unfenced retirement duplex. Unable to build a fence, Lorna developed the habit of walking Pirate several times a day. This is how they lived until a series of seizures rendered him unable to stand without falling. “I’m sorry you had to deal with Pirate during such a difficult time,’ I said to Lorna when she told us that he was gone. “Oh, don’t be sorry,” she replied. “I miss him. I get home from visiting wayne and he isn’t there to greet me.” David and I know how she feels. We miss him too, though in a different way. We miss the petting sessions and the snuggles and the endless toy tugging competitions that Pirate always won. But beyond that, we miss the life we had when Pirate first came to us, a life where the future promised an untapped reservoir of good things and we had the freedom to say: “Sure we’ll take that dog.” If he could give us advice at this point, I feel certain he would say: “Look around you, see what you have, make the most of it and move on when you need to.” This we have tried our best to do. Somewhere out there we suspect there is a person who once lost a friendly little white diggedy dog, a dog with brown patches who dreamed of being free. We don’t know what your life was like, or how you came to lose him. But if you are that person, or any other person who loved Pirate, we are truly sorry for your loss.

FAMILY GOLF

It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course. Hank Aaron Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/golf.html Lawrence and Mark organized a family golf game. The goal, it seemed, was to seize the day, to have as much fun as possible. Each of them did their part. Lawrence had the idea. Mark booked the tee time. Lawrence arranged the weather. The day was perfect, sunny with a slight ruffling breeze, not too hot, not too cold, no mosquitoes. Mark arranged the golf carts. “Could we have two golf carts?” he asked at the Pro shop. The clerk was polite, but curious. “For two golfers?” he asked. “Yes,” said Mark, making no apology. “We can manage with one.” We left the shop with the key to one cart. Any conversation that might have occurred between clerks went unheard by us. Then, just at the moment when Mark was leading his blind mother by the arm, and Lawrence was helping his dad board the cart from his wheelchair, the clerk appeared with the key for a second cart. No additional charge. We all climbed aboard. I rode with Mark. Sibling rivalry bubbled just below the surface. With a wave to his brother, Mark cranked our speed to maximum. We must have been going one or two kilometers per hour. “You can’t scare me,” I said, looking as fearless as possible while holding tightly to the side arm. Mark takes wicked corners, wickeder when his brother is watching. By and by Tracey joined us at the fifth hole tee box with a full load, baby Carys in the baby carrier and a picnic supper alongside the diaper bag. I surrendered my seat to most of Tracey’s cargo to trail after the carts with Tracey and Carys, chattering all the way. We know you’re supposed to whisper on a golf course. We just forgot. Dad spotted the balls as they landed. Birds chirped. Ducks watched unmolested. Nobody knows who won, because nobody bothered to pick up a score card. After the picnic we all went home. If the goal is happiness, there are probably a thousand ways to play family golf.

THE FLOWER PROBLEM

Picture a balcony bearing ten pots of flowers. Find impatiens, geranium, Martha Washington, evening scented stocks, pansies, heliotrope, roses, begonia, petunias, alyssum, ornamental grass and a few adornments that didn’t come with names. Picture all of this in mid May in a province known for occasional snow in June, and there you see it—evidence of a FLOWER PROBLEM. Warning: don’t bother organizing an intervention to get my attention. Don’t assemble a delegation of caring family supported by flower problem treatment professionals! I know about the problem. I know that only I can beat it. Some day I’ll beat it. I swear I will! It was daughter Ruth who first named the illness. She had failed to notice the introduction of the lily patch and a few hanging pots to the already flowered house on 67th Street. She had celebrated the planters and peonies at the house on 89th Street. But when the number of front yard pots exceeded twenty, she felt she had to say something. “You, Mother,” she announced, “have a flower problem.” How could I deny it? Time I used to spend with the kids on the soccer field was now spent trimming the coleus. Television watching time was pre-empted smelling the roses. But how could I quit, or even cut back? What would our friends say? How could I explain it to any of the neighbours who passed our house on walks just to see the profusion Then, out of the blue, an opportunity presented itself. We were moving to an apartment. It would be difficult to have a flower problem on an apartment balcony. Where would I store the potting soil? How would I deal with the mess of water and fallen leaves? Who would haul away the debris? We moved in late August. “No flowers,” I said to my surprised family. “The flowers stay with the house.” Just to show how serious I was, I only took a few empty pots, and a few plant stands, and one pail of potting soil. And I only bought one chrysanthemum when the need arose to warm the autumn chill. Perhaps if I had been a little more vigilant at the first signs of spring, things might have turned out differently. But it seemed right to thank Mark for bringing the first pansy pot in early April, an affirmation that winter was truly gone. And would it not have been impolite not to rejoice when Grace brought my favourite yellow pansies and removed the remains of last year’s chrysanthemum? And how could I have rejected the rose bush in full bloom that Mark presented as a gift for early Mother’s Day, or the free pot of geranium and petunias that came free from Superstore with a grocery order over $250.00? Would it have been right not to support our church by purchasing $100.00 worth of summer joy from the annual plant sale? After all, the house did not sell as we had planned. And there sat the remaining plants stands, lonely on the veranda. Had they, after so many years of faithful service, not earned a position of honour outside our new livingroom window? “I like to look out the window at all those flowers,” said David. Next door to us stands a high rise with suites that look directly on to our balcony. “These people probably think I have a flower problem,” I said to David, as I stowed the last of the potting soil. “Don’t worry,” said he. “The neighbours have always loved our flowers.. If I were to be truly honest and not simply hopeful, I suppose I would have to admit that I may never be cured. The root of the flower problem, it is now obvious, lies in the act of enablement. Yes, there is an enabler living under my very own roof? How can you expect to cure yourself of a problem like that with an enabler in the family?

MAKING MEMORIES

On Mother’s Day weekend in the future Feasting in cozy cafes and restaurants of rich renoun Will I fail to recall the day I spent beneath an umbrella in a song-bird serenade As the vegetable seeds pierced the surface with their tiny stems and the dandelions grew a foot or more in a single moment? Will I neglect to remember the frosty marguerite in my hand, The fresh blueberries and left-over pizza served with a cheery “there you go, Mother!” My feet cooling in a shallow pool with sand on the bottom for the beach effect? Will I disremember the rosy lips of Baby Carys exploring the pool’s rounded edge As her eyes peered into the sandy water and her hand sought the thrill of a possibly forbidden dip? Will my mind fail to review that tender moment, when after slurping a long and luxurious drink, Bentley launched 88 solid German Shepherd pounds into the cool pool, Ignoring entreaties to come quick for the capture of the mouse who surveyed the scene from beneath the mountain ash? Will I forget the Mother’s Day weekend of 2016? It’s possible, I suppose. For any thing is possible. But I doubt it!

AN INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC CLASSES FOR BABIES

Kitty: I’ve been wondering where you go on Saturday mornings. Carys: To music class. Kitty: You don’t say! Music class eh? Are you learning to play the piano, the trumpet, the obo perhaps? Carys: Of course not. I may seem grown up to you, but I’m only six months old. I probably won’t be able to play the obo until I can sit up without support. Kitty: Then what do you do there? Carys: Make noise, mostly. Kitty: Like purring and meowing, you mean? Carys: Sometimes, but only in the animal songs. Kitty: What are your favourite things to do at music class? Carys: Oh, I like to suck on the sticks, and they have rubber drums. Now a rubber drum is a thing you can really sink your teeth into. And I like to get up on my hands and knees and watch the toddlers toddle. Today one of the toddlers toddled right over to Teacher’s guitar and loosened the strings. That must have been fun. Then, and this is really fun, I make big spit puddles on the floor and race to see if I can crawl through them before Mommy notices. Kitty: Oh. Are grown-ups allowed to go to music class. Carys: Sure. Every Saturday Mommy and I pick Granny up on the way and we all go together. Granny hugs me and lets everybody else know that I’m the cutest kid there. Then she dances with me and bounces me up and down until I spit up my breakfast. She says she gets her Saturday morning exercise getting up and down off the floor with me in her arms. Mommy says going to music classes is a good way to spend time with Granny, and Granny says listening to music lights up at least six different areas of your brain if you view it on MRI, which we never do. So I really wonder if it’s actually six, or maybe five or seven. And does it light up more areas when you suck on the sticks? Kitty: Ahhh! So much science in the world, and so little is known.

THE NIGHT WALL

From time to time we would travel to Spirit River and stay with Aunty Adaline. We would bunk in her basement—a roomy place with comfortable furniture and a generous bathroom that was private for guests. But on one occasion we called her to say that we would be camping nearby at Saskatoon Lake. We would visit her for an afternoon. If her objection was only half-hearted, we did not notice. “It can be cold out there,” she said. “The weatherman is predicting cold weather.” “On July 31 we are certain it will be fine,” we said. We had not planned for snow. Saskatoon Lake is named for its bounty. The bushes hung heavy with purple deliciousness. But nobody likes to pick saskatoons while wearing mittens, so we did not pick a bucket for Aunty Adaline as we had planned. Instead, we called to say that we had changed our minds about staying over at her house. We had not been fully aware up to that point that Aunty Adaline’s health was changing. Where once we would have arrived to a warm welcome and the irresistible aroma of cake in the oven, we found her flustered, preoccupied with the combined effort of a search for her lost Life-Line Alert button and the remaking of her bed so that we could sleep under clean sheets. Her basement was messy, she reported, due to a recent flood. Though fully cleaned, it remained disorderly. She would not entertain the idea of our going there. We would share the big bedroom in her room. She would sleep in a single bed elsewhere. When bedtime came, we climbed guiltily between her sheets. The curtain of sleep descended. I was dreaming deeply when the wall spoke her name. “Adaline,” said the wall. I was not particularly surprised. Walls will speak to those who feel guilty. Deeper into the dream went I. “Adaline,” said the wall, more urgently this time. “Adaline, are you all right? Shall I send an ambulance?” Here is my best advice for those considering possible life-mates: Look for someone who will know what to do if the wall begins to speak in the middle of the night! For while I pulled the covers over my head in a hopeful attempt to silence the thing, David informed the wall that we were Adaline’s niece and nephew, spending the night in her bed. “Her Life-Line Button has been pushed,” the wall replied, and David, with characteristic practicality, dug in the space under the mattress until he found the lost button, and removed it from its hiding place so that it would no longer be activated by the process of rolling over in bed. . “Good night,” said the wall. “Good night,” said we. So the wall did not send an ambulance, and David was soon breathing the deep inhalations of a peaceful sleep restored. But I lay awake, wondering how long it might be until the RCMP would pound upon the door, sent to investigate the possibility that two sleepy robbers had somehow disposed of Aunty Adaline/

ELDERS

This week we lost Aunty Adaline, the last of the generation that precedes us in David's family. We are now the elders. It's a worrying proposition really. What do the best elders do, anyway? We tend to say that elders in our society are not respected. And yet, I think they are, which is the very thing that makes elderhood such a challenge. The best elders are wise, but not too quick to share their wisdom. They are stable, but flexible. They bring the experience of the past, and a childlike wonder when viewing the present. Elders teach us to laugh at things we wouldn't know how to laugh at. They show us how to part with vanity. They love us. They want to see us. These are the things we lose when the last elders of a generation are gone. This is the responsibility that, by birth, is transfered to us.

WHAT I MEANT TO SAY IS ...

The first sentence of a paragraph, as my grammar teachers used to say, prepares us for the content that will follow. These wise voices come to me across the years as I sit down to type, with my HOPE LADY fingers, a reflection on the happenings of the past week. I have been saying—no, face it I’ve been WHINING—about the terrible week we’ve had. Pity the person who casually asks: “How is your week so far?” That person is going to hear a tale of woe. Have I got a tale of woe to tell! It’s been a lousy week. Here is the evidence. There is a cold so attached to me that I fear we are permanent partners. The ground is covered with ice that makes crawling the safest way to avoid a fall. There’s a son who needs his mother’s love because he slipped on that ice and ended up with five stitches in his head. There’s a program that needs more of my time because a colleague is on stress leave. There’s a friend whose tea date had to be changed so that I could help a principal whose staff are devastated by the suicide of one of their own. There’s a plumber who has practically lived at our house lately because our heating system has decided to take a vacation. (Have you ever noticed how well heating systems tend to work in the summer?) There’s a whole night’s sleep gone forever while I kept a watch on the fireplace to ensure that the fire kept going. (How did they ever sleep in pioneer days?) All of this as we prepare for a trip that would truly be inconvenient not to mention expensive to cancel. All of this and even more has sprung to the tip of my tongue when people ask “How’s your week so far?” Why is it, I wonder, that in a bad week, the story of the badness so often steals the show? I’ve been thinking, I guess, that this has been a bad week, and that has been the first sentence of the paragraph. There are, of course, many perspectives on any given story. Here is another story about that same week, a story with a different opening sentence. Our children have chosen top-notch partners—people you’d be thrilled to welcome into your family. For evidence of this, I need only turn to my recent electronic communications. There is, for example a message on my iPhone. My daughter-in-law is out doing a few errands. If it is convenient for me, she could stop by and pick up Pirate. This will give us a couple of free hours that would have been spent taking Pirate to her house (his second home and first choice for a good time whenever we are out of town.) It is, of course, extremely convenient for me, and she knows it, but doesn’t say it. The email contains a message from our son-in-law—a man preparing to collect us at the airport some time around midnight. His refrigerator, he tells us, has been stocked with items selected to delight us: bacon, gluten free beer, chocolate milk. He hopes we are looking forward to our time with them. What he doesn’t say is that he is collecting us around midnight and will likely be up at 2:00 AM even though he is expected to be wakeful for work the next day. Now I wouldn’t want to leave things unsaid that should be said. It should be said that the electronic communications show a history of loving phone calls made by these wise children who chose top-notch partners. They called to chat, to update us on their news, to confirm plans, to ask if there is anything we need them to do. From among all the evidence, one indisputable conclusion emerges. A bad week is not such a bad week when you can count on a loving connection with children and their top-notch partners. Perhaps that should have been the first sentence of this story, but sometimes, when you sit down to reflect in writing, you don’t know what you really wanted to say until you get to the end.

GLUTEN FREE LESSONS

Nine months have passed since we launched an effort to provide a gluten free diet for David. He had a sore and swollen tongue, the apparent extension of a condition whose origins could be traced back to early childhood. When the tongue specialist (who knew there were tongue specialists?) suggested a gluten-free approach, I, frankly was disappointed. I had been hoping for drugs. Now it is one thing to hope for an improvement, and quite another to hope for that thing in the face of fear. Mention drugs, and I imagined early morning reminders to “take your drugs, Dear.” Mention gluten free and the future indeed seemed terrifying. Visions of life without fresh baked buns and Saturday visits to the Italian Bakery for iced chocolate doughnuts danced in my head. There would be no more Welsh Cakes. All our future restaurant meals would involve slippery salads consumed in precarious balance on high stools at health food bars. There would be no more pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, no stuffing at Christmas. Life with a gluten free husband would exceed the worst nightmares that a wheat farmer’s daughter could conjure. “Perhaps I will learn something,” I promised myself weakly. There is one sure sign that my hope is low. You see it when I start promising myself that I’ll resort to learning. Nine months have passed, and what have we learned? · There are more gluten free recipes than you’d think. The Internet is a-0buzz with them. As with all recipes, some turn out better than others. · There are other ways to make Welsh Cakes, waffles, birthday cakes, doughnuts, Rice Krispies Squares, pyrogies, lasagna and pretty much everything else you ever ate that had gluten in it. · There are a lot of things you used to eat that didn’t have gluten in them. · There are more gluten free options at restaurants than you would think. · There are even quite a few restaurants that carry gluten free bread and offer to serve it to you. · You can get more exercise on a gluten free holiday because you walk further when you make a point of deciding whether to stay by asking restaurants for gluten free options before you sit down. · You can lose a little weight on a gluten free diet. (author’s note: you can’t lose any weight eating gluten while your spouse goes gluten free.) · And, perhaps best of all, you can learn that you are loved, because your children, your siblings, your friends, and your colleagues will go out of their way to make inclusive changes. Come to think of it, you can learn a lot in nine months!

BABY TALK

Pirate: I am one lucky dog! Kitty: oh yeah? Pirate: Yes. Want to know why I say I’m a lucky dog? Kitty: I suppose. Pirate: Well, you know that baby we’ve been seeing—the one that changed Wendy’s name to granny? Kitty: Yeah. Pirate: and you know how you told me that he would be chasing me around the house, pulling my TAIL, eating my food, and getting me scolded for growling at him? Kitty: yeah. Pirate: Well, I’ve seen him three times now kitty, and I’m thinking you’re wrong. Kitty: I suppose it could happen. Pirate: The first time he came to my house it was March. I guarded my food, I stayed far away from him and I curled my tail as tight as I could. He just laid around on various laps. All my effort was wasted. Kitty: and? Pirate: The second time he came it was July. I guarded my food, I stayed far away from him and I kept my tail curled tightly. He just laid on the floor blowing bubbles. All my effort was wasted. Kitty: And? Pirate: the third time he came it was September. I didn’t bother guarding my food. In fact, I didn’t even need so much of my food because of the yummy stuff he dropped on the floor for me when he sat in his high chair. When he finished feeding me, he’d sit on the floor and roll onto his tummy. Then he would raise himself on all fours, almost as if he were a dog. He looked right at my tail, gave me the most beautiful smile and said, “ehh! ehh!” I thought “Now I’d better be careful.” I’d look straight at him and curl my tail tightly. Then he’d push with his hand until he crept backwards. Every time he pushed he got fartheraway from me. He’s harmless kitty. I tell you. You ought to be more optimistic. Kitty: And what will you do when he learns to creep forwards? Pirate: Oh, I’ve got it all worked out. Every day now I put my tail behind me and practice walking backwards. Kitty: you can lead a dog to enlightenment, but can you make him think?

A COMPICATED SUMMER

Summer is over. That is my final answer. Surely on September 30 the truth of it is indisputable. Never mind that the flowers of Edmonton are still out in full bloom, and the sun can take off your sweater in a matter of seconds, so fresh is the memory of warm pavement. Never mind that the wasps still buzz when we take our supper out to the veranda. Never mind that my sandals remain at the front of the shoe rack. Never mind that my birthday, only 9 days ago, was celebrated as a garden party with all the house doors agape and the guests lingering for hours on the lawn. Summer’s over, I say stubbornly. Ignore all evidence to the contrary. “How was your summer,” my friend asks me. “Complicated,” I answer truthfully, beginning, conservatively I hope, to describe all the things that prevented me from answering her question with the more customary “It was a great summer.” The list is a longish list of complications and when its highlights have been explored, it is time to move on to another topic. Those things that might have provided evidence of a good summer—even a great summer—remain undescribed. “What were ten of your favourite things about our summer?” I ask David later in the day. “Ten?” he says doubtfully—suspecting that he might be contributing to the next instalment of THE HOPE LADY Blog. “Make it five,” I blurt. No point in giving him a task too large to handle. It was, after all, a complicated summer. And I was, after all, fishing for some way of thinking that the summer might have been good. “Our trip to Meadow Lake,” he begins. I am surprised, for I have forgotten the trip to Meadow Lake. How could I have forgotten it? Late June was only three months gone. I am vaguely disappointed in myself for cutting the list from ten to five. I’ve made it too easy. Why, now that I have remembered it, I can easily name five good things about Meadow Lake. He could too, if he thought about it. He could list the perfect sand without a pebble to hurt our feet, the cool lake water, the prompt response to our call for a boost when we drained the car battery, the family of spruce grouse that delayed our trip to the beach, the ice cream stand, our shade-dappled games of Progression Rummy, the rainy day that snuggled us into the trailer for an afternoon’s reading and then turned to sunshine so we could cook our outdoor dinner. He could name these and the list would be done, but he does not do this. Instead, he rushes on. “Our week with the Haleys in Ontario,” he says, “all the people we saw in Ottawa, and the light show on Parliament Hill, and all the Sundays we spent at Mark and Tracey’s new home, and the games of dice we played on the veranda. Is that five? What would you list?” What would I list? What were my favourite things about the summer? I would list all of these. Then I would add some others—the good fortune of finding fabulous people to rent our suite, the generosity of the work crew who whipped it into shape for renting, three happy weeks of hands-on Grannying, the sense of family and the companionship of having my sister live with us throughout the summer. There were parties and picnics with my nieces and nephews, chances to hold their babies. There was the group of seniors with macular degeneration that I loved to facilitate, the people who shook off their depression and gave credit to me, the letter from the university asking me to supervise students again, my new volunteer counselling job at Walk In Counselling. There were the warm evenings on restaurant patios in Milwaukee, our introduction to the St. Lawrence Seaway, the cruise among the Thousand Islands, the sweet corn from farmers’ markets. My tongue tingled with the memory of raspberries from the patch. There were the afternoons when Lawrence mowed the lawn and trimmed the hedge. I loved the concert with The Once at the T.A.L.E.S Festival. There were stories to tell. David had been telling some of them. I loved the story about the bird who hit our window, then fell onto the veranda. It lay there for half an hour, a corpse awaiting disposal. And then, when David touched it with a shovel, it roused itself and flew off. “It’s a good thing,” he said, “that I didn’t try to put it into a trash bag before picking it up.” It might not have been able to fight back. Judging its condition too early would have been a fatal error. And I say, with that story in mind, that the summer is over, though we are, so far, having a lovely autumn. It’s a good thing I held on to the summer long enough to be able to sort through the complications and report, with evidence presented, that it was a great summer. For how could it have been otherwise, given all that happened in the space of three short months?